


404: Not Found

by nothing_rhymes_with_ianto



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 21:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/602282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto/pseuds/nothing_rhymes_with_ianto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Torchwood exists for everyone, in some dark memory or stolen time they’ve forgotten.</p>
            </blockquote>





	404: Not Found

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea. I just started writing and this is what came out.

It’s a strange existence, the one they live in. A sort of weird limbo. She can’t talk to Rhys about the frog-man they killed on Thursday, or the way Tosh turned completely purple from the Yurken’s defence mechanism. She can’t joke to her friends about the dead Nostrovite that splattered Owen with decomposing juices when he tried to autopsy it, or tell stories about Ianto’s dry wit that keeps them calm in the face of danger.

It’s a strange life they have. They haven’t got many friends. But they don’t have many real enemies either, at least not here on earth. Torchwood is a big hoax or conspiracy theory to most Welsh natives, and nonexistent to those outside of the UK. People don’t notice the things right under their noses.

Ianto’s family thinks he’s a civil servant. Tosh’s mum thinks she’s pursuing a top-secret military career with that genius technician mind of hers. Owen’s mum doesn’t care, and he doesn’t talk to her. Jack’s old lovers never knew what he was. The organization is one giant mask, a curtain to hide behind.

Even when the streets ring with screams and growls and gunshots, everything is wiped away in the morning. Ianto has painted over the gore and horror with a sunrise and tea and an explanation eagerly swallowed by the citizens who would rather pretend they weren’t disturbed in the night. They live and work in the middle of a busy centre, and yet they don’t exist. Even Cybermen can be waved away if you don’t think to hard, if you cling to your quiet desperation as tightly as you clutch your mug of tea in the morning and hope you can down that last sip without breaking apart.

It’s in the back of everyone’s mind. It’s never secret enough. They all know it. Jack jokes about it. Gwen worries. Ianto works quietly in the background to keep it at bay, Owen wishes he was one of the ones out there, and Tosh thanks whatever’s out there that she isn’t.

Torchwood sits there like that object that’s been in your house for so long that you no longer notice it. But you know it’s there. Torchwood exists for everyone, in some dark memory or stolen time they’ve forgotten. Torchwood is that invisible knowledge, the hidden truth. It’s silent but watchful and everyone can feel its gaze. It’s like that thing you’ve forgotten—there, just there, on the tip of your tongue. You know what it is but you cannot possibly think of it. It’s like a broken link or a crashed website.

Everyone knows the page exists, but when you type it in, there’s nothing there.


End file.
